


A Pull Forwards

by LostOneironaut



Category: Mage: The Ascension, Original Work
Genre: How Do I Tag, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24480862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostOneironaut/pseuds/LostOneironaut
Summary: Adal reflects on her new companions, on recent events, and on her current situation.





	A Pull Forwards

**Author's Note:**

> This is a piece for my Storyteller, who asked us to write a brief piece explaining our character's mental state. Adal is a kinfolk (part werewolf, but not a shifter herself) mage. The campaign began at most a couple weeks ago in game, and the party is on the run from the technocracy, who most recently sent - among other things - a horrifying werewolf amalgam after us that was built around one of the werewolves from Adal's pack, which she killed in a blind rage. No one in the party is okay right now.

The others, Adal reflected, didn’t know her very well yet.  
  
The tree before her let out a painful cracking noise as her claws tore into it, her arms tense as chucks of wood were torn from the trunk. She had dropped her jacket before she started, let it slip of her as she began tearing into the innocent woods around her. That had been… some amount of time and some number of trees ago, Adal wasn’t exactly in the state of mind to keep track.  
  
Her observation rang true for all the mages she was now working with, but especially the pups – and pups they were, regardless of their varied ages and levels of experience. She didn’t know them either, but felt her current impressions were at the very least somewhat accurate.  
  
(Connie, tall and lanky, afraid and unprepared but wanting to keep others safe. Dora, wanting to understand both the world and herself, chasing scattered pieces of her shattered soul. Guy, foolish and greedy but surprisingly steadfast, beholden to a deal he can’t recall making. Croakules, unaware yet capable, firm in his faith to his strange god. Circe, hopeful but utterly out of her depth, not at all prepared for the darker side of the adventure her life has become.)  
  
They didn’t know her, didn’t understand the beast that lurks under her skin, the part of her that she lives with and has long since accepted as an essential part of herself. The part of her that even still yearned to rush back to the compound, to find the trail and hunt down those responsible for doing that to her pack. The part of her that wanted to howl in rage and anguish and hatred and pain and loss. A loss that she knew would be burned into her very bones the rest of her life and beyond.  
  
It wasn’t their fault, not entirely. Even the mage watching over her was uncomfortable – he smelled of it so strongly it was practically a perfume – but the werewolf, not her pack but her kin nonetheless, understood at least a little. He felt the pull of the beast of course, though it was unlikely as strong as her own. While such a thing wasn’t uncommon, the mages with the pack wouldn’t be so shocked if there were many like her among them.  
  
As the tree began to list to the side, the mostly shattered trunk finally giving way, Adal moved to the next tree as if possessed, her body continuing to tear a new clearing into existence as her mind wrestled with itself. Her very soul felt torn in two directions; one half pulling her towards June, Mother, home, her pack, while the other half, the half of her that wasn’t, not completely, because it was her avatar, pushed her towards the mages nearby, to help them and learn from them and make strides towards whatever kind of ascension her bird was leading her towards.  
  
She didn’t have a difficult relationship with her avatar like Connie or Guy, but in this moment, she felt some resentment towards the damn thing. The others may be friendly, but they weren’t pack, would never be pack, could never be pack. None of them felt the wild’s pull, and almost certainly never would. That wasn’t any slight against them, not at all, but it meant that they would never be able to return what she gave them, not really.  
  
She would follow her avatar where it led her make no mistake. She would accompany these mages, would probably learn to care for them in some way, but right now…  
  
Adal missed her mother.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated, as I'd like to improve my writing. I have a couple ideas for things to try writing, so maybe I'll work up the motivation to do so soon.


End file.
